Posted on 04/26/2017 2:53:50 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The launching ceremony of China's second aircraft carrier was held at the Dalian Shipyard of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) on the morning of April 26, 2017. Gen. Fan Changlong, member of the political bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) attended the ceremony and delivered a speech.
China Launched its First Home-Made Aircraft Carrier for PLANFive years after commissioning the Liaoning (its first aircraft carrier) China launched this morning its second carrier – the Type 001A. Unlike the Liaoning, Type 001A was fully built in China.
The ceremony was kicked off in magnificent national anthem at 9:00 and a bottle of champagne was broken on the aircraft carrier as a customary way of blessing the ship. After that, the new aircraft carrier was slowly towed out of the dockyard and transferred to the wharf.
The second aircraft carrier is domestically built by China. China started building it in November, 2013. At present, the main hull of this aircraft carrier has been completed and the main system devices including power supply have been installed in place.
Undocking and launching is one of the important nodes of a new aircraft carrier construction, marking that China has made significant phased achievements in designing and building an aircraft carrier independently. Next, the aircraft carrier will debug its system devices and conduct fitting-out as planned, and start mooring tests in an all-round way.
The PLA Navy Commander Shen Jinlong,PLA Navy Political Commissar Miao Hua, and CSIC President Hu Wenming also attended the ceremony.
Type 001A during launch
Differences between Liaoning and Type 001A
It is easy to spot the difference in the island between the Liaoning - transformed by the Chinese from the unfinished Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag - and its new sistership: The new carrier features some upgraded radar arrays, its island is said to be about 10% smaller while the vessel itself is said to have a larger displacement of about 10,000 tons.
Our colleagues from East Pendulum report that, according to a former technical officer of the PLAN, the engineers of the CSIC shipbuilding group also reviewed the internal design of the Type 001A to rectify the "anomalies" noted after the intensive use for nearly five years of Liaoning.
http://www.eastpendulum.com/quand-un-porte-avions-part-en-entrainement-un-autre-se-met-a-leau
Source: South China Morning Post
US Navy should get some live fire practice sinking this thing.
Rather stunned by the comparative size of the tug boats. This thing is small. First carrier quals are going to be interesting.
Not bad. I wish they would include more details about it; such as its length and displacement.
Length of about 315 metres and 70K displacement according to this article
https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/defence-notes/china-lauds-launch-first-domestic-carrier/
Thanks to “free trade”, our consumer dollars paid for this for the Chinese Navy, instead of funding ours.
Is that accurate? Why would it have catapults as well as a ski jump? Where is the advantage?
“the Communist Party of China (CPC)”
Will they name it the CPC Clinton?
...and just on a whim, trigger WW3. Brilliant!
I figure that carrier is about as functional and threatening as Russian and Indian, both jokes.
That is kind of what I guessed.
Impressive looking ship. I wonder how they organize their battle groups.
Ummm...bad enough that the source chose to both use a confusing pic and microprint, but embedding the confusing pic without the caption didn’t help at all...
A Great Power conflict today would make the aircraft carrier obsolete. These are like battleships in WW2; mostly used to shell shore emplacements. Aircraft carriers today are symbols of national pride and power, like gilded armor worn by nobles in the 1600s.
Carriers will became obsolete when the concept of air superiority over huge swaths of ocean become obsolete. Which means never.
The key to having superiority at sea is the industrial infrastructure to produce new ships and to repair damaged ones quickly.
Chinese industrial base is ascendant and ours is in rapid decline. So they win.
If China went to a war footing they could crank those babies out by the dozen. They have a huge steel production capability, and the man power to do it.
It isn't so important the navy you have at the beginning of a naval conflict it's the navy you have at the end that's important.
Another step towards China’s goal of having a blue ocean Navy and being able to project power on their side of the Pacific.
Is there any real advantage or benefit to having the ski ramp st the bow? U.S. carriers have used it as far as I know.
Carriers are sitting ducks if you have weapons in low Earth orbit.
Displacement is said to be about 65,000 tons, slightly less (if I’m not mistaken) than Britain’s new Queen Elizabeth-class carriers, and about 40,000 tons less than our Nimitz-class CVNs.
One of the biggest features missing from China’s second carrier are steam catapults. Instead, they’re relying on the ski ramp design used in their first carrier (purchased from Russia). Catapults are more complex, but they allow you to generate more sorties, and allow strike aircraft to carry heavier payloads. The embarked air wing on the Chinese carrier is probably somewhere around 40 aircraft, including strike fighters, ASW assets, C2 helos and rescue choppers.
Definitely not a vessel that can project significant power a great distance from China’s coastline. But it can function as a seaborne extension of the air defense network. It will also help China gain more expertise in carrier ops, laying the foundation for their third flattop, which will be larger, equipped with steam catapults and carry a wider range of strike and support aircraft.
Still, the PLAN is a long way from matching the USN in carrier operations. When they’re able to launch/recover dozens of strike sorties at night, in marginal weather, in hostile waters, let me know.
FYI: By definition a moving object is not a sitting duck.
I thought they were using helicopter AEW like the Russians.
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